Harris and Me

to go.
“Let him eat,” Glennis said. “He doesn’t know how to eat fast yet.”
Harris grew quiet but pulled at my shirt and whispered. “Come on....”
I ate as fast as I could—envy for Louie’s technique grew strong in me—and still chewing followed Harris out the door.
Into pitch darkness. I had forgotten that it wasn’t light yet and before I realized it I took a step off the porch and tumbled into the yard.
“Tarnation! Can’t you even walk?” Harris dragged me up and disappeared in the darkness, headed in the direction of the barn.
The path proved to be an obstacle course. I tripped on a board lying on the ground, took a header over the yard gate, bounced off a granary wall, walked full on into a tractor, and finally arrived at the barn because Harris had taken pity on me and had at last led me by the hand.
I did not understand what “getting the cows in” meant. Or why we would want them “in.” By this time I was swearing constantly, using words I had learned from soldiers in the Philippines and pretty much didn’t give a damn (how I thought it) if I ever saw a cow—or Harris, for that matter.
Harris led me through the darkened barn—the smell of manure stopped me cold—and out the back door where he stopped and stepped off to the side and seemed to be fumbling with something. There was a rustle of paper, another moment of silence, and then a flare as he struck a match and lit a hand-rolled cigarette. He took a deep drag, inhaled, and blew smoke.
“A man likes a good smoke after he eats. You want one?”
In the glow from the cigarette he held out a cloth sack of Bull Durham with wheat-straw papers on the side.
I had never rolled a cigarette, had only tried smoking once—without inhaling—with my mother’s cork-tipped Old Golds. But I wasn’t about to admit it to Harris.
“Sure—give me one.”
He had to light four matches to give me enough light to see but I at last got one rolled—a pitiful, lumpy-looking thing that threatened to fall apart. He lit the end of it with the flare from the fourth match and—not to be outdone—I took a deep drag, as he had done, and inhaled.
The effects were immediate and spectacular. The smoke went halfway down, I gagged, choked, and instantly lost all the pancakes I had eaten in a spray that nearly covered Harris.
He jumped back. “You don’t know nothing, do you?”
In back of the barn was a quagmire of manure and urine, chewed into a perpetual muck by the cows, and I dropped the cigarette into this mess and leaned against the barn wall vomiting.
Harris retrieved the cigarette, brushed the burning end off, and put the remaining tobacco back in the sack. “This is hard to come by. I had to steal it from Louie and he’s got eyes like a hawk. Come on, let’s go get the cows.”
He moved off in the darkness, walking barefoot across the center of the mud and manure, and I followed without thinking. In two steps I was in over my tennis shoes. I jumped back—cow crap to my knees—and tried to go around. Harris was out of sight in the darkness and I hurried to catch him, still dry heaving at five-second intervals.
There was the faintest gray light in the east by this time, and as I came around the side of the mucky area I made out a living form in front of me.
“Wait a minute. I don’t know where...”
I was hit directly in the groin with such force that it lifted me off the ground, doubling me. I grabbed for the injured area as I started down, vaguely sensing that I was about to start puking again, and then something slammed into the top of my head and my world ended in an explosion of white light.

3
Wherein Harris introduces me
to work and I meet Ernie
The voices seemed to come from far away, muffled and through a hissing ring.
“He doesn’t know things, Harris—you have to go slow with him.”
“Well, how in the hell was I supposed to know he’d walk right up Vivian’s butt?”
Smack. “Watch the swearing.”
“Well, what could he expect? Everybody knows Vivian kicks and doesn’t like anybody around her rear end...”
“That’s just it, Harris—he doesn’t know. He’s from the city.” I could recognize voices now, though I hadn’t opened my eyes. It was Clair. “He doesn’t know anything about farms, the poor dear. And what a way to start, getting kicked by Vivian.”
Things were still blurred in my thinking. Somebody named Vivian had apparently kicked me. Hard. I made a mental note never to cross her again. Whoever this Vivian was, she had a very direct form of criticism. It was, however, strange that she would hide out in the darkness in back of the barn next to a pool of cow crap waiting to kick the bejesus out of people...
I opened my eyes.
I was in the small dining area next to the kitchen, lying on my back on the table with something wet and white over my head and eyes. I couldn’t see anything.
“See?” Harris asked. “He ain’t dead. He’s moving—look at that. A big damn fuss over nothing.”
Smack.
“If you don’t stop swearing, I’ll take a switch to you.” Glennis’s voice.
I raised a hand and felt a damp cloth on my forehead and face. At that moment the cloth was lifted away and I was looking up at Clair and Glennis. Harris stood down by my feet. Everybody but Harris had worried looks on their faces and I tried to smile.
“Are you all right?” Clair asked.
“I hurt.” I touched my forehead where there was a lump that felt as big as a grapefruit.
“Yes, I know. Vivian kicked you. It always hurts when Vivian kicks you.”
“Who’s Vivian—and why doesn’t she like me?”
Clair smiled. “Vivian is a cow, dear. And she doesn’t like anybody. I believe she’d kick